Thoughts on leaving Canada

As we pack up to leave Canada, there is a feeling of disappointment. Disappointed that the Canadian experience was not as rich as what I had expected. Sure, part of it was due to geographical reasons. I had previously visited British Columbia and went snowboarding in Whistler from a base in Vancouver. It was amazing. This was back in 2009 and Vancouver had not yet fallen into its current sad state, which it shares with cities like San Francisco. There were some seedy areas but the city overall was vibrant and interesting and the people were kind. Whistler blew me away with its sheer size and beauty, and all hikes that I took in the area were stunning.

Unfortunately, finance jobs always seem to be clustered in cities that are far removed from natural wonders. Johannesburg, London, New York, and of course, Toronto. Canada is a beautiful country, but you have to drive 100's of Km's away from Toronto, to get out of the GTA, before you encounter the natural beauty.

It is also due to cultural differences. Provinces like Novia Scotia, and Quebec, all have unique identities and histories. The GTA is the destination for the majority of the millions of people coming to Canada, and the result is a melting pot. The dish served from this melting point is not full of complex flavour that is rich with all of the contributions, but is instead rather bland and boring.

But by far the worst factor is the poor direction from the political leadership and the resulting stagnant economy. The decay since 2015 is evident by many metrics and is again proof of the damage being done worldwide by misguided and shallow policies that do not consider the economic impact. There cannot be a better illustration than these two quotes from Trudeau, the Prime Minister.

"...the budget will balance itself." No, budgets do not balance themselves. It is an intricate act to balance them which requires an understanding of finances, which no-one in the current Canadian Cabinet has. It is truly shocking that a G7 country has a cabinet that is completely financially illiterate. They even claimed recently that they have exercised financial restraint throughout their tenure, which is demonstrably false.

"....you’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy. You’ll understand that I think about families.” Nothing could better illustrate their sheer ignorance and incompetence. Monetary policy is not some geeky endeavour that cool politicians with bizarre socks don't have to lower themselves to that mundane level to contemplate. Monetary policy impacts the economy and inflation, and has a direct result on families. By ignoring monetary policy and focusing on sentimental items that add no value, they allowed inflation to run amok and now have caused punitive interest rates to try and rein it in. Directly hurting families. But it was nice that they were thinking about them.

The army has been begging for bullets and supplies like printers. They are woefully underfunded but won't get them. But as a symbol of how extreme the government's progressive priorities now are, they have female menstrual products, in the men's bathrooms, of all federal buildings. Does anyone with common sense think that this is a priority, for the armed forces? What about the right for Canadians to be protected by a strong force, is that not important?

Look at this graph of government debt in Canada. It is staggering how it has jumped. Some may defend the government by referring to the pandemic, but it was their choice to act in a hysterical and unrestrained fashion. Over $300 million for a vaccine factory that didn't make a single dose. Billions for Covid tests that did not work. The debacle of $54 million which was paid to a shell company to produce the ArriveCan app.

Of course, interest rates have rocketed up since this debt was incurred, so debt service is quickly becoming a crippling cost for Canada.

Even worse than federal debt is household debt. It has exploded up, and again, is now being punished with high interest rates. Canadian living standards are dropping, as well as life expectancy.

Sadly, this squeeze has seen record numbers of Canadians at food banks. This is data from one food bank which tells a story similar to what is being played out across the country.

A stagnant GDP coupled with a rapidly growing population due to migration, means a falling GDP per capita. Meaning each Canadian has less. That is the wrong direction for a country. This is not helped by the falling productivity of Canadian labour. The worst of this lack of productivity is unsurprisingly in the federal government. An astounding statistic is that in 2020 - 2021, 86% of new jobs created were for the government. When the Minister of Finance, Freeland, talks about the economy creating jobs, she is not being truthful. What she means is that a stagnant economy that is suffocated by red tape and regulations, is unable to create jobs, so the federal government is creating jobs by adding more people to do less work. No Canadian would say that the output from the government has improved over the last few years, while they added 400,000 jobs to their own bloated government services. See below how costs have surged up for labour, but without an increase in productivity.

What is at the core of this national underperformance? Relentless spending, without anyone ensuring that the country got value for the money. Crony capitalism overseeing the dishing out of millions of dollars to friends who will swallow a huge amount and give very little in return, making taxpayers poorer. With no prioritization of items that would make the country better, safer, or more prosperous. An overflow of money in the system, causing it to devalue through inflation.

It is unfortunately a similar story to South Africa, my home country, which went into a state of serious decline after Zuma came into power in 2007. By every socio-economic indicator, it has dropped. South Africans are resilient and I still hope that the country will emerge again, under different leadership. The story of these two countries demonstrate what a dire and wide-ranging impact it has when there is a weak and corrupt leader of a country, and when policies prevent capitalism from being an engine for growth.

It does not have to be like that. Canada has a massive abundance of natural resources. Countries are not rich solely because of their natural resources. There needs to be government policies that encourage the growth of businesses and foster innovation. LNG could be extracted and sent to Europe so that they do not have to rely on coal-fired plants, which would have a significant impact on reducing carbon emissions. Farmers should not be paying carbon taxes and increasing the cost of food, when there are no viable alternatives for them to complete their process.

Even more disturbing is the censorship. Canada set a new bar for how low a democratic country can go when the bank accounts of protesters were frozen, and even those of people making $50 donations to the protests, when their only crime was to stand up against an over-reaching government and peacefully state their opposition to what they perceived as unfair and unnecessary mandates. Which citizens in a democracy are entitled to do. Across Canada, rational voices are not permitted to question the crazed ideology that is guiding this failing government. Jordan Peterson was ordered by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to undergo social media training. One of his dastardly deeds was to criticize Trudeau. Apparently, that is no longer acceptable in Communist-like Canada. Google said that the Canadian legislation on global media put it in a category of countries like North Korea.

The only bright point of this lack of achievement and prosperity is that this government seems to be finally falling out of favour. People are realising that their platitudes will not help society. With a bit of common sense, Canada can manage its resources and build its economy, and start to thrive again. I will not be here, but I truly hope that it happens. Canadians deserve to prosper, and it hurts to see a country wither away. For no good reason.

Trudeau even instilled this weird self-hatred of the country for itself, so much so that some places did not want to celebrate Canada Day. That is wrong. A lack of self-respect is not necessary for meaningful reconciliation to take place.

Canada should be proud of itself and be strong. As should we all.